I agree with you about the assets issue, which is truly scary, and that this is parody and thus protected. But on the other hand, surely Wiley has the right to contest whether it is parody. And then it would be a matter for a court to decide. There's not a presumptive ruling against the trademark holder: "Sorry, Wiley, you're not allowed to disagree whether this is parody or not."
Well, that was the most apologetic trademark-related letter I've seen in a while (the one from Wiley). The subtext is definitely "look, this is what the law says to do to keep from being diluted, so we're doing it, and here we go."
Seriously, if people writing trademark letters look like dicks, and thus easy targets, it's because the law says they have to, in much the same way that if a neighbor builds a swingset on part of your property and you don't say anything, eventually that land becomes their property.
So it should be expected that they would send such a letter (and thus shouldn't draw such an injured reply), and it should be expected that SlackersGuild should reply with the (legitimate) response that it is parody. Yawn, on to the next issue. The interest here isn't whether lawyers are asses for sending letters, it's whether Wiley as a company will willingly outspend Nastard for something that's clearly not worth their time to push. But don't call them dicks for sending the letter in the first place; blame the law. And if they bury SlackersGuild in litigation, then call them rapacious bastards.
It's worse than even you are saying -- it looks like most posters are not reading the article and are just assuming that this Sony = get MP3s while you listen.
This Sony device won't let you extract any files, which are stored as ATRAC rather than MP3 anyway. I would think this means that Sonicblue has a bigger edge than adamjone is saying.
Finally someone said something about how overwrought a cliche "the terrorists win" is. I would add to your examples that I don't think they are rubbing their hands together in stereotypical evil because airport lines are a little longer.
It was clear just how cliched when comedy shows returned to the air and quickly made dozens of jokes that ended "because if x, the terrorists win." That just took a matter of weeks.
They care about the deaths caused, the attention and the calculable economic disruption, maybe, but not changing our day to day life. Like Eddeye says, they want us out of Mideast and/or destroyed. All the more reason we should do the patriotic thing and stand against unnecessary encroachment on freedom. The founders would have wanted it that way.
I'm less concerned about the direct effects of another attack and more about the panic, because in a mass panic we can see how fragile our system really might be.
But why do the people providing the hardware also have to be the ones providing the programming info?
It's like LoadStar said. Feel free to approach TMS with your own proposal to get a listings data stream that is active 24/7, to incorporate a multitude of last-minute changes. Then get back to me when you figure out how to pay the sum required. Then you can pass that along for "free" to the millions of OpenPVR people who would be glad to take what you paid for.
Yahoo/TVGuide/et al. give listings for free the same way 99.999 percent of sites give anything for free: because you are viewing ads. Surely even though you can read news on CNN.com for "free" (after unit costs for Internet) you don't think CNN didn't pay a reporter to get the story?
Your "service market" is the same way. Show me a market where competition evolved a market to provide free services to millions. Even an XML standard would eventually incorporate a way to serve ads or charge a subscription. This comes up in every PVR discussion on Slashdot, and over and over again it must be said just how nontrivial this listings gathering is.
Iceland is a good candidate to make the big leap, since they draw a great bulk of their energy from geothermal and hydroelectric means. I'd like to say that's all policy-related and that they would be an excellent model for the U.S. -- but then, few countries come close to Iceland in terms of volcanic activity...
Of course nobody complained about TiVo Takes... it was just another show that people selected to watch voluntarily! Instead of complain, people either selected or didn't select it.
Which is probably why it went away... "not enough" people were setting a season pass to TiVo Takes.
That's a good idea... I will implement it as soon as I fix the part of my personality that takes any capacity you give me and fills it...
See, I would be in fear of hitting record, because even though I have 138 hours of capacity, I always have a number of programs on the verge of being deleted and am always juggling... I guess it's time to get rid of the 2000-2001 season of 'The X-Files.'
My problem, I know.:) At least the closets in the house aren't filled to capacity... yet...
"Yes, NBC representative, we at Abercrombie & Fitch will take your 'Clockwork Orange' package for this week's 'Scrubs'... yes, the standard fee, $5 million for 100,000 'Alexes'... standard waivers of liability."
Well, my point is sort of a macro-level point. If I'm buying a 40-hour box sold as a 30-hour box (for whatever it's worth, the TiVo hackers learned that upgraded boxes lost 12 hours of capacity when the software upgrade went out that triggered use of the "reserved" space), then I've had space I could have been using as a happy consumer that actually sat idle for six months or so, all so that an unemphasized, unpromoted, hushed future feature could someday be awakened.
Don't get me wrong... I know about TiVo's cash flow problems and I want them to live, through creative new means if necessary... But there are different ways to that result, and they've been successful so far with the "don't favor broadcasters over users" approach.
Well, here I mean that a selling point of the box is that it has the last half-hour buffered -- this is the central point of "trick play," one of TiVo's most prominently advertised/marketed features.
Which is great, except if you are away from the box for more than 60 seconds and you have "record suggestions" set to "on," you stand to lose that buffer you think you had...
And if you turn "record suggestions" off, this enhanced content will still flush the buffer if you don't respond in time. It just contradicts one of its other marketing points (and one I happen to use and depend on).
Two repetitive points seem to be coming up from defenders of the "enhanced content," and I thought I would bring the usability issue to bear.
Argument 1: "It's coming from reserved space, so it doesn't affect your existing programs."
What if I have a 15 or 30 hour box (at basic), and some event (vacation) means I'm having trouble juggling just a few things I wanted -- in the meantime, space is "reserved" that could have been provided for my use (remember me, the one who bought the product for usability's sake).
In that sense, the reserved space affects my regular space, and that of anybody who purchases the box, because only so much "space" fits in a given box. If it's about making for both happy users and a healthy company, the money from people who prefer the "extra" space rather than reserved space may outweigh the (payoffs from networks minus lost subscriptions from angry users).
Argument 2: It doesn't pre-empt live television.
Mostly wrong, though it doesn't seem to pre-empt scheduled recordings. I often pause a baseball game and leave the room to take a phone call, for example, or leave it playing knowing that I can go back 20 minutes or so to catch Barry Bonds' record-tying home run.
On 60 seconds notice, a forced program changes the channel and loses the previous program buffer. Goodbye, user option to review what they might have missed, all because they weren't on guard with the remote to respond "yessir" or "nosir" to the equipment they own. Remember that is one of the prime selling points of the product, at the moment.
Note the first words -- in version 2.5. If you have a different version of TiVo software (and lots of people do) it won't work. These shortcuts seem to change radically between software versions. Check a subset of the site referenced (the TiVo Hack FAQ) for more detail, and check software version and use at your own risk.
It's most certainly not a waste of time. Creativity is great, but ideas that can have adverse effects on whole communities (like a movie crowd) need their merits picked over, and asking "who the hell would do that?" could stand to be asked of much more of technology. That's the difference with your analogy; one person can bank online and another in person and they're not interdependent, so bully for both of them. I have a stake in what happens at the movies.
It's scrutiny like this that can make [creative uses] as a variable into USES, with real merits.
I suppose if nobody asked "Who the hell really needs a Snickers delivered to their door at 11 p.m.?" investors might still be sending bad money after good at Kozmo.
I'm a big Drafthouse fan. Speaking as a frequent customer, the food service as it's currently practiced is distracting enough without people doing more tasks unrelated to the shared purpose of seeing the film. If I really need to hear every whisper of the dialogue, I won't see that film at the Drafthouse. It's more of a party-movie destination; films like "Snatch" and "Spider-Man" have worked really well there. Seeing "A.I.," not so much.
Like others said, if you're going to step up and correct people, be sure you're not making it wrong instead, or you just look dumb.
Beside with no 's' is a positional statement: The phone is beside the monitor. Rob was right to use besides as the correct way to suggest "in addition to." Honestly, people, you're Internet users, Merriam-Webster has this stuff out there for your spare-time education or quick checks before you introduce an error.
I suppose as long as I'm here, you didn't fix PC which fits back to Rob's correct form, PC that fits. I'm sure Rob's happy enough with his current errors not to have every self-ordained grammar teacher attaching riders.
The data isn't any more free on tvguide.com than it is in a copy of TV Guide that you find on the street (free to you). It's just paid for -- at very high cost, by the way -- by the primary customer, who can then give it to you on their terms (ad viewing, or any other type of "license.") Do you think tvguide.com would still give free listings if any significant chunk of people were scripting the listings and skipping their ads and branding?
You could subscribe to TV guide for about $4/month. (If you didn't already have Internet service, it would cost a lot more than $4 to get it just for the "free" listings on tvguide.com or others.) Or for a few dollars more, you could come back from vacation to realize that even though Fox moved "The Simpsons" to Wednesday that week, the Tivo still got it and you didn't have to make any adjustment.
So don't you make it sound like $10 goes to their wallets when the listings are more expensive to obtain than anyone realizes, and that there is a value-add they give beyond just sending listings, in making them an integral part of the service's functionality, not the "box's."
Software bux fixes and customer service is something I expect to get for free
Well, previous poster wasn't talking about bug fixes but major upgrades to functionality... i.e., something that was already cool got cooler, with more program info by far (original air dates, etc.) than you can get from free sources and more searchability now. And your context makes it seem like the whole fee goes to software fixes, rather than that being just a piece of the package.
On the second point, even if I believe that it does cost them *ANY* money to collect the data you describe (channel lineups, etc) it would amount to pennies per customer (not $10/month)
Anybody worked on a listings publication like TV Guide or your Sunday paper's insert? Just me? OK, then I can tell you it is insanely expensive. Not to mention one of the most NONtrivial things you could ever imagine. You really have to see the guts of the operation to realize just what people take for granted. BTW, before somebody says the networks should be subsidizing that, don't expect anything from them, they're like the phone company. They could use technology to improve DVR performance (standardized real-time start/stop signals, say?) but they're happy with inertia.
Also, context again... contrary to what you suggest, $10/month doesn't just get you listings. It gets you listings PLUS the functionality that comes with having regular listings PLUS the development of new functionality from a company that has been extremely responsive to customer demands/requests.
Don't make it sound like this $10/month supports the infrastructure. It doesn't. It's a money making scheme
Wow... forgive them for trying to cover their burn rate. According to all their filings, they're burning cash at 300 percent their revenue, though that number is shrinking slowly. Of the companies out there, they're the best one to be a proof of concept and I for one want them around to bring us all the economies of scale that are out there one day.
Bottom line is it's a market perspective. Saying the company should/should not be doing this/charging that takes a back seat to this consideration:
1. If you have a job, determine how many hours of your labor $10 buys
2. Adjust as you see fit to figure out how much of your time is worth $10
3. Do you get more from having the subscription (whether in doing what you do now, or getting added utility) than you do without? If so, then go for it. I think the takeaway from Tivo-debates is that there are a lot of people saying, hey, this is worth it! Regardless of grumbling that says a) "I'll just roll my own! They won't take advantage of me" or b) "I've never tried this but here is a lot of details why it sucks and why they are criminals for not getting somebody else to pay for it."
Argh. From Jon Katz, another book proposal masquerading as a report/discussion.
Other posters put this better, so I'll keep it short. Just one small bit of what those media have given us: TV -- efficient, rapid-fire data (if not info) for a long time after the attacks where news Web sites (and effectively, the whole Net) were useless. (Even if somebody were posting better information than TV at the second the attack happened -- *I* didn't see it.) Web -- unfunny-at-this-point discussion/report on Evil Bert. Real classy stuff for all concerned.
Slashdot Mirror
Not to answer a question with a question or anything.
Couldn't really let this topic pass without linking to the story:
RIAA Sues Radio Stations For Giving Away Free Music.
I agree with you about the assets issue, which is truly scary, and that this is parody and thus protected. But on the other hand, surely Wiley has the right to contest whether it is parody. And then it would be a matter for a court to decide. There's not a presumptive ruling against the trademark holder: "Sorry, Wiley, you're not allowed to disagree whether this is parody or not."
Seriously, if people writing trademark letters look like dicks, and thus easy targets, it's because the law says they have to, in much the same way that if a neighbor builds a swingset on part of your property and you don't say anything, eventually that land becomes their property.
So it should be expected that they would send such a letter (and thus shouldn't draw such an injured reply), and it should be expected that SlackersGuild should reply with the (legitimate) response that it is parody. Yawn, on to the next issue. The interest here isn't whether lawyers are asses for sending letters, it's whether Wiley as a company will willingly outspend Nastard for something that's clearly not worth their time to push. But don't call them dicks for sending the letter in the first place; blame the law. And if they bury SlackersGuild in litigation, then call them rapacious bastards.
... How does this affect the 2.8 GHz Pentium 4??????
Puffy vests? Dude made his own writing too dated!! Everybody knows puffy vests are out!!
Iceland's literacy rate is 100 percent.
This Sony device won't let you extract any files, which are stored as ATRAC rather than MP3 anyway. I would think this means that Sonicblue has a bigger edge than adamjone is saying.
It was clear just how cliched when comedy shows returned to the air and quickly made dozens of jokes that ended "because if x, the terrorists win." That just took a matter of weeks.
They care about the deaths caused, the attention and the calculable economic disruption, maybe, but not changing our day to day life. Like Eddeye says, they want us out of Mideast and/or destroyed. All the more reason we should do the patriotic thing and stand against unnecessary encroachment on freedom. The founders would have wanted it that way.
I'm less concerned about the direct effects of another attack and more about the panic, because in a mass panic we can see how fragile our system really might be.
It's like LoadStar said. Feel free to approach TMS with your own proposal to get a listings data stream that is active 24/7, to incorporate a multitude of last-minute changes. Then get back to me when you figure out how to pay the sum required. Then you can pass that along for "free" to the millions of OpenPVR people who would be glad to take what you paid for.
Yahoo/TVGuide/et al. give listings for free the same way 99.999 percent of sites give anything for free: because you are viewing ads. Surely even though you can read news on CNN.com for "free" (after unit costs for Internet) you don't think CNN didn't pay a reporter to get the story?
Your "service market" is the same way. Show me a market where competition evolved a market to provide free services to millions. Even an XML standard would eventually incorporate a way to serve ads or charge a subscription. This comes up in every PVR discussion on Slashdot, and over and over again it must be said just how nontrivial this listings gathering is.
Iceland is a good candidate to make the big leap, since they draw a great bulk of their energy from geothermal and hydroelectric means. I'd like to say that's all policy-related and that they would be an excellent model for the U.S. -- but then, few countries come close to Iceland in terms of volcanic activity...
Which is probably why it went away ... "not enough" people were setting a season pass to TiVo Takes.
See, I would be in fear of hitting record, because even though I have 138 hours of capacity, I always have a number of programs on the verge of being deleted and am always juggling ... I guess it's time to get rid of the 2000-2001 season of 'The X-Files.'
My problem, I know. :) At least the closets in the house aren't filled to capacity ... yet ...
"Yes, NBC representative, we at Abercrombie & Fitch will take your 'Clockwork Orange' package for this week's 'Scrubs' ... yes, the standard fee, $5 million for 100,000 'Alexes' ... standard waivers of liability."
Don't get me wrong ... I know about TiVo's cash flow problems and I want them to live, through creative new means if necessary ... But there are different ways to that result, and they've been successful so far with the "don't favor broadcasters over users" approach.
Which is great, except if you are away from the box for more than 60 seconds and you have "record suggestions" set to "on," you stand to lose that buffer you think you had ...
And if you turn "record suggestions" off, this enhanced content will still flush the buffer if you don't respond in time. It just contradicts one of its other marketing points (and one I happen to use and depend on).
Argument 1: "It's coming from reserved space, so it doesn't affect your existing programs."
What if I have a 15 or 30 hour box (at basic), and some event (vacation) means I'm having trouble juggling just a few things I wanted -- in the meantime, space is "reserved" that could have been provided for my use (remember me, the one who bought the product for usability's sake).
In that sense, the reserved space affects my regular space, and that of anybody who purchases the box, because only so much "space" fits in a given box. If it's about making for both happy users and a healthy company, the money from people who prefer the "extra" space rather than reserved space may outweigh the (payoffs from networks minus lost subscriptions from angry users).
Argument 2: It doesn't pre-empt live television.
Mostly wrong, though it doesn't seem to pre-empt scheduled recordings. I often pause a baseball game and leave the room to take a phone call, for example, or leave it playing knowing that I can go back 20 minutes or so to catch Barry Bonds' record-tying home run.
On 60 seconds notice, a forced program changes the channel and loses the previous program buffer. Goodbye, user option to review what they might have missed, all because they weren't on guard with the remote to respond "yessir" or "nosir" to the equipment they own. Remember that is one of the prime selling points of the product, at the moment.
Note the first words -- in version 2.5. If you have a different version of TiVo software (and lots of people do) it won't work. These shortcuts seem to change radically between software versions. Check a subset of the site referenced (the TiVo Hack FAQ) for more detail, and check software version and use at your own risk.
It's scrutiny like this that can make [creative uses] as a variable into USES, with real merits.
I suppose if nobody asked "Who the hell really needs a Snickers delivered to their door at 11 p.m.?" investors might still be sending bad money after good at Kozmo.
I'm a big Drafthouse fan. Speaking as a frequent customer, the food service as it's currently practiced is distracting enough without people doing more tasks unrelated to the shared purpose of seeing the film. If I really need to hear every whisper of the dialogue, I won't see that film at the Drafthouse. It's more of a party-movie destination; films like "Snatch" and "Spider-Man" have worked really well there. Seeing "A.I.," not so much.
Yeah, I figured. I didn't mean to be harsh in tone ... I'm a copy editor and it's a pet peeve.
Beside with no 's' is a positional statement: The phone is beside the monitor. Rob was right to use besides as the correct way to suggest "in addition to." Honestly, people, you're Internet users, Merriam-Webster has this stuff out there for your spare-time education or quick checks before you introduce an error.
I suppose as long as I'm here, you didn't fix PC which fits back to Rob's correct form, PC that fits. I'm sure Rob's happy enough with his current errors not to have every self-ordained grammar teacher attaching riders.
You could subscribe to TV guide for about $4/month. (If you didn't already have Internet service, it would cost a lot more than $4 to get it just for the "free" listings on tvguide.com or others.) Or for a few dollars more, you could come back from vacation to realize that even though Fox moved "The Simpsons" to Wednesday that week, the Tivo still got it and you didn't have to make any adjustment.
So don't you make it sound like $10 goes to their wallets when the listings are more expensive to obtain than anyone realizes, and that there is a value-add they give beyond just sending listings, in making them an integral part of the service's functionality, not the "box's."
Well, previous poster wasn't talking about bug fixes but major upgrades to functionality ... i.e., something that was already cool got cooler, with more program info by far (original air dates, etc.) than you can get from free sources and more searchability now. And your context makes it seem like the whole fee goes to software fixes, rather than that being just a piece of the package.
On the second point, even if I believe that it does cost them *ANY* money to collect the data you describe (channel lineups, etc) it would amount to pennies per customer (not $10/month)
Anybody worked on a listings publication like TV Guide or your Sunday paper's insert? Just me? OK, then I can tell you it is insanely expensive. Not to mention one of the most NONtrivial things you could ever imagine. You really have to see the guts of the operation to realize just what people take for granted. BTW, before somebody says the networks should be subsidizing that, don't expect anything from them, they're like the phone company. They could use technology to improve DVR performance (standardized real-time start/stop signals, say?) but they're happy with inertia.
Also, context again ... contrary to what you suggest, $10/month doesn't just get you listings. It gets you listings PLUS the functionality that comes with having regular listings PLUS the development of new functionality from a company that has been extremely responsive to customer demands/requests.
Don't make it sound like this $10/month supports the infrastructure. It doesn't. It's a money making scheme
Wow ... forgive them for trying to cover their burn rate. According to all their filings, they're burning cash at 300 percent their revenue, though that number is shrinking slowly. Of the companies out there, they're the best one to be a proof of concept and I for one want them around to bring us all the economies of scale that are out there one day.
Bottom line is it's a market perspective. Saying the company should/should not be doing this/charging that takes a back seat to this consideration:
1. If you have a job, determine how many hours of your labor $10 buys
2. Adjust as you see fit to figure out how much of your time is worth $10
3. Do you get more from having the subscription (whether in doing what you do now, or getting added utility) than you do without? If so, then go for it. I think the takeaway from Tivo-debates is that there are a lot of people saying, hey, this is worth it! Regardless of grumbling that says a) "I'll just roll my own! They won't take advantage of me" or b) "I've never tried this but here is a lot of details why it sucks and why they are criminals for not getting somebody else to pay for it."
Not that you were saying those two things.
Nice article on this now online from Wired, about Google licensing and other parts of its semi-unique profit strategy...
Other posters put this better, so I'll keep it short. Just one small bit of what those media have given us:
TV -- efficient, rapid-fire data (if not info) for a long time after the attacks where news Web sites (and effectively, the whole Net) were useless. (Even if somebody were posting better information than TV at the second the attack happened -- *I* didn't see it.)
Web -- unfunny-at-this-point discussion/report on Evil Bert. Real classy stuff for all concerned.